It’s a rich year for cinema that’s coming to an end. In this regard, one of the event films of 2023 was undoubtedly Oppenheimer (VF), by Christopher Nolan, which will soon cross the billion US dollar mark at the worldwide box office. However, from the biography of the “father of the atomic bomb”, a dark subject if ever there was one, we expected a less explosive success. In order to see the film projected in IMAX 70 mm format, thousands of moviegoers traveled hundreds of kilometers: a phenomenon. Better: at the end of a vast online survey organized by the site Rotten Tomatoes, Nolan was named the best filmmaker of the last 25 years. A few weeks after the Blu-rays and 4K ofOppenheimer had passed until exhaustion upon their release, the filmmaker returns to his cinematic bomb.
“I had an interest in quantum physics born from my meeting with Nobel laureate Kip Thorne, who collaborated on my films Interstellar [Interstellaire] And Tenet. So I was predisposed to be interested in nuclear physics,” confides Christopher Nolan during a virtual conference at which The duty was able to attend.
Stars Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt and Robert Downey Jr. also participated, as did producer Emma Thomas (who is a city couple with the filmmaker). So many comments collected which constitute a great end-of-year gift for moviegoers.
The film is based onAmerican Prometheusa biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.
In the event, Emma Thomas initially had doubts about the feasibility of the film.
“When I started reading this enormous book, my first thought was to wonder how Chris was going to be able to make a great, entertaining film out of it,” she relates.
Perplexity, however, quickly gave way to enthusiasm.
“The advantage of an adaptation like this is that the work by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin is 700 pages long,” notes Christopher Nolan. Martin, in particular, spent 25 years researching. So I benefited from all this incredible data, from all these anecdotes from people who were there at the time of the events… Even if it was not necessarily obvious, when reading the book, that it had cinematic potential, for me , once I held on to the key moments of life [d’Oppenheimer], the ones that really moved me, I knew I had an incredible resource to fall back on. »
Increased rigor
Which does not mean that the director and screenwriter limited himself to the content of the biography. For example, he went to Washington to consult the abundant documentation concerning the hearings of the United States Atomic Energy Commission in which Oppenheimer participated, as well as that of the security approach against Oppenheimer hatched by Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.).
“I was able to consult the Senate archives and read the transcripts of the security hearings: 1000 pages,” specifies the filmmaker. I worked from all that. Roughly speaking, my process consisted of taking notes based on my readings—book and transcriptions—as well as what I would tell people about this story if I tried to tell it to them at a dinner party. »
This is to make everything digestible. The idea was not to transform spectators into qualified quantum physicists, says Christopher Nolan.
“So I was able to determine what were the things that I really needed to stay true to, the key elements that moved me… I was then able to start to develop a structural approach. »
Here, the filmmaker adds that he was fascinated by the fact that at this time there occurred what he calls a “major paradigm shift” in scientific and human thought, following the development of the theory of relativity by Albert Einstein (Tom Conti).
“I wanted us to feel how radical this upheaval was, and how powerful the change in thinking was,” he summarizes.
Also at the writing stage, Nolan decided to incorporate as many secondary and tertiary characters as necessary.
“I chose not to create composite characters. I told my head of distribution that we needed unique faces, unique energies, for all these little scores. The multiplicity of people involved in the Manhattan Project is one of the aspects that I found most interesting in this story. »
The weight of history
Logistically, the film required a wealth of resourcefulness, because although appreciable, the means available to the production fell short of Christopher Nolan’s ambitions. As Emma Thomas explains: “It was a challenge, because we really wanted to release the film in the summer, and reach as wide an audience as possible… while knowing that it’s a film that deals with big concepts, lasts three hours and is rated R [les personnes mineures doivent être accompagnées d’un adulte]. For these reasons, we could not spend as much money as we would have liked. Hence, for example, a daredevil filming schedule. »
For the record, the budget ofOppenheimer amounted to 100 million US dollars. For comparison, Tenet cost twice as much (and brought in a third of the revenue).
The interpreters hardly felt these constraints, all having only words of gratitude towards their master builder.
“I said yes before even reading the script,” admits Cillian Murphy, who was meeting the director for the fourth time.
“Afterwards, I understood that it was huge. I understood the importance [du film] from the point of view of humanity and history. It’s not often in a career that you’re offered this kind of role. […] It was an immense responsibility, embodying this character, this icon who changed the world. But I knew that with Chris at the helm, I was in the best hands imaginable. »
With the role of Katherine Oppenheimer, the unpredictable wife of the protagonist, Emily Blunt was conscious of inheriting a complex score.
“She had admirable qualities, despite her increasing reliance on alcohol. She was a stabilizing force for Oppenheimer, with her outspokenness that could offend people. I’m always very curious about the lives of people who seem unlikeable. I wonder why they are like that […] Kitty had a sense of spectacle and knew the effect she produced. I based her voice on an ingénue actress from the 1930s and 1940s who then let herself go and became this really fantastic old lady who drank a lot. »
Robert Downey Jr. found himself wondering what would have happened if
Lewis Strauss and J. Robert Oppenheimer had an understanding.
“How would things have happened if Oppenheimer and Strauss had not had this acrimony and had been able to work together? But when it came to my character, the “bad guy,” for lack of a better word, there was a lot to draw inspiration from. »
Resonate in the present
We mentioned it from the outset, the extent of the success ofOppenheimer defied industry predictions. Quickly
conquered by the vision of her creative partner and husband, Emma Thomas, she was not so surprised: “I think it was when he told me what he intended to do at the end, with this last reply, that I knew it would work with today’s audience, that it would resonate in the present. »
She was right, a billion times right.
The film Oppenheimer is available on VOD on all platforms.